from the self-destruct-sequence-has-begun dept.
Boeing's Starliner is Making Mysterious 'Sonar' Noises and No One Can Explain It - Plagued Spacecraf
The saga of the misadventures of Boeing's Starliner in space is far from over, even as the spacecraft is scheduled to return soon to Earth without its crew.
This time, NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore noticed some 'strange noises' coming from a speaker inside it.
Ars Technica reported:
"'I've got a question about Starliner', Wilmore radioed down to Mission Control, at Johnson Space Center in Houston. 'There's a strange noise coming through the speaker ... I don't know what's making it'."
Butch was not sure whether there was some problem in the connection between the station and the spacecraft that was causing the noise.
He asked Houston to listen to the audio inside the spacecraft.
"Wilmore, apparently floating in Starliner, then put his microphone up to the speaker inside Starliner. Shortly thereafter, there was an audible pinging that was quite distinctive. 'Alright Butch, that one came through', Mission control radioed up to Wilmore. 'It was kind of like a pulsing noise, almost like a sonar ping'.
'I'll do it one more time, and I'll let y'all scratch your heads and see if you can figure out what's going on', Wilmore replied. The odd, sonar-like audio then repeated itself. 'Alright, over to you. Call us if you figure it out'."
The sonar-like noises most likely have a benign cause, and Butch did not seem worried.
What Was the 'Strange' Noise Boeing Starliner Crew Members Could Hear?
What Was The 'Strange' Noise Boeing Starliner Crew Members Could Hear?:
A crew member aboard Boeing's CST-100 Starliner reported hearing mysterious sonar-like sounds through the spacecraft's speaker, sparking widespread speculation and humor on social media. The noises, with no clear origin, led to theories ranging from paranormal activity to technical issues like electromagnetic interference. This incident further complicated Boeing's ongoing efforts to prove the Starliner's reliability, especially after previous mechanical failures during its mission to the International Space Station.
Has anyone got any bright - or not so bright :-) - ideas?
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday September 04, @10:45AM
and the turntable doesn't have auto-stop.
But I'm sure there's no turntable in Boeing aircraft.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday September 04, @11:37AM
You know how windows will randomly autoroute sound output? It was like that but on a spaceship.
Not even kidding IIRC it was audio routing.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 04, @12:18PM (2 children)
It's the predator, of course. https://www.avpcentral.com/ [avpcentral.com] No one can be sure if the predator dies if the ship burns up on reentry.
I'm also reminded of old shipbuilding tales. A worker(s) are killed during a shipbuilding accident, and their corpses are discovered aboard ship years or decades later when the ship is scrapped. Of course, the worker's spirits haunt the crew all during the ship's career.
Then, there's the idea that Musk's AI has taken over the ship. "I can't open the door, Dave."
A MAN Just Won a Gold Medal for Punching a Woman in the Face
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DadaDoofy on Wednesday September 04, @12:58PM
Yes, but Dave made it back into the spacecraft. I believe Frank is responsible for the banging.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday September 04, @07:05PM
Is that better or worse than Red Dwarf's "Everybody's dead, Dave"?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MrGuy on Wednesday September 04, @05:52PM
Someone on the assembly team accidentally dropped their iPhone behind a panel somewhere during assembly.
Now they’re switched on “Find my iPhone” to play a sound to try to locate it.
Working perfectly!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday September 04, @06:17PM
It's either Blue Öyster Cult or Hootie & the Blowfish put on loop?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 04, @06:26PM
It was probably some easter egg added in by some developer who thought "The craft isn't going to be up there for more than a few weeks. There's no way this DEI bullshit is going to affect the craft."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by corey on Wednesday September 04, @10:41PM
Hard to know what it is without hearing it.
But when I saw the headline, my first thought was a switchmode regulator squealing, because I've been dealing with a few other those lately while prototyping/testing them. It's when they aren't working properly, e.g. when shorted etc.
But a periodic pinging noise? At a high level, sounds like induced/received noise from another source. Not sure what the speaker is connected to but if it is a digital system with output speaker (voice comms/alerts), then it might be getting into the DAC or just after (acousitic frequency noise in the audio amplifier input). That would be broadband noise from somewhere else in the capsule. If the speaker is connected to an RF receiver, then it could be image frequencies getting past the RF/IF filters. Might be broadband pulses from terrestrial emitters like beacons etc. Maybe an old school spinning radar emitter and the signal is being downmixed to audio frequency? Up there it could be almost anything given the exposure to 1/4 of the Earth's surface down below. Could also be an emitter onboard the ISS which is getting back into the receiver circuit. Periodic pulses are normally radar or location/tracking beacons, or heartbeats.
It's really hard to come up with anything without knowing at least something about what the speaker is connected to and what the system does.
Since there're are a couple of people up there with a few months of nothing to do, maybe they can look into it.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday September 04, @11:15PM (1 child)
Funny noises from a speaker isn't high drama in itself, but a bunch of stuff like this, that would never show up on the two week stay, could obscure or confound the serious problems they want to solve.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Thursday September 05, @06:23AM
If you want really funny noises then put a microphone next to the speaker microphone's sound is routed to.